Private DNS Settings

server_paul

Could you please explain the Private DNS settings?

Off is pretty clear, I assume it won't be used at all.
Private DNS provider hostname, I assume it forces private DNS.
What about Automatic? Does it try to use private DNS but falls back to regular DNS if the private DNS Server fails?

I haven't found any clear information about this online yet.

woodchuck

The “Automatic” setting attempts to use TLS encryption with
the DNS currently associated with your phone's connection .
If that fails, it reverts to unencrypted DNS.
.

server_paul

Thank you!

schweizer

I agree this is bad wording. Manual DNS(oT) woud be more precise. In terms of privacy is often better to set this setting to off rather than enabling it with google servers.

But is is an Android thing, not specific to GrapheneOS.

ron

schweizer As far as I know, GrapheneOS doesn't use the google servers:

GrapheneOS replaces Google Public DNS with Cloudflare DNS for the fallback DNS servers due to the superior privacy policy and widespread usage including as the fallback DNS servers in other Android-based operating systems.

Source: https://grapheneos.org/faq#default-dns

schweizer

ron You got me wrong. Yes GOS doesn't use the google DNS in auto mode. But it uses them if you set them manually. And this setting will often be worse in terms of privacy compared to set the private dns thing to off. Hence the misleading wording.

ron

schweizer But who talked about manually setting up google DNS? There are a lot of other DNS servers that offer DoT.